This study focuses on the debate surrounding global policies and practices related to the sector of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), utilizing the Greek policy context as an example. Drawing on the critical education policy studies literature, this paper interrogates the complex concepts of quality and autonomy, which are core in the…

This article analyses how school leaders depict their autonomy and how they make sense of the relationship between autonomy and control. Attention is drawn to three leadership focuses: the pedagogical direction of the school, decision-making over the internal organisation, and school improvement work. The article integrates survey data on Swedish…

Policy tools have become widespread in education, which indicates efforts to standardise content and professional practices. However, such standardisation might be in contrast to Nordic early childhood education and care (ECEC) traditions of diversity and local variation. We therefore study the distributors and enactment of policy tools in ECEC in…

In England, the relationship between the higher education regulator (OfS) and those it purports to regulate is highly strained. A 2023 parliamentary inquiry into the OfS published an excoriating report which found, among other issues, problems with the execution of its statutory duty to protect institutional autonomy. An OfS policy which evidences…

Our study examines the discursive construction of academic subjectivity within the context of the current reforms of academia, driven by the forces of economization and metricization. We focus in particular on the construction of two models of top researchers. Drawing from the theory of Pierre Bourdieu, we call these models 'autonomous' and…

The Scandinavian states have international reputations for promoting social democratic ideals, which have long been manifest in Nordic universities, e.g. legal protection for academic freedom and university studies free of charge. However, Nordic governments have made new h.e. laws, thereby changing university autonomy and management structures,…

A significant paradox of school autonomy is that it tends to constrain the autonomy of teachers, instead subjecting them to the increased controlling of their work, heightened monitoring, and greater accountability. This paper draws on interview data to show how teachers in accountability-driven and business-like schools face three different but…

The aim of this article is to explore how Swedish principals experienced the decentralisation and re-centralisation reforms and how they affected principals' autonomy and decision-making capacity. Data were obtained from three surveys of Swedish principals, carried out in 2005, 2012 and 2019. The results show that principals experienced a high…

Over the past decade, universities in the People's Republic of China have notably progressed in international rankings. Most of the existing literature interested in this development describes the adoption of university rankings in China as a recent import of a global institution, and as being driven by a governmental agenda that seeks to bolster…

Teacher education (TE) in Finland is based on strong university autonomy, including the right to decide the curriculum content and the teaching methods. Democracy and its values are generally seen as central principles for TE, and the normative basis for education promoting democratic culture is strong. However, in practice, education for…

Bellwether scanned the country for ideas and resources that leaders can use to address staffing challenges in their schools. This curated set of tools is intended to support school leaders who have the autonomy to manage the talent life cycle in their school community and are looking for practical ideas to strengthen their ability to recruit,…

The relationship between regulation and quality assurance of higher education in the United Kingdom (UK) has a long and complicated history, which contributed to the foundation of the UK Quality Assurance Agency for higher education (QAA) in 1997. After March 2023, the UK-wide QAA will stop being the Designated Quality Body (DQB) for English…

During the past decade, responsible research assessment (RRA) has become a major science policy goal to advance responsible research and innovation and open science. Starting with the DORA declaration in 2012, common understanding of the needs and demands of RRA has been shaped by a growing number of initiatives, culminating in a European…

The purpose of this article was to critically explore the experiences and lessons of governance in higher education systems in the Commonwealth of Asia, and most importantly how these experiences and good practices can be applied to the governance and management of higher education in Commonwealth nations, especially in the Commonwealth of Africa.…

In late 2015, the Lao government finalized its five-year National Socio-economic Development Plan 2016-2020 (NSEDP) to assist Lao PDR in meeting its goal of graduating from the ranks of Least Developed Countries status by 2020. The NSEDP is supported by a five-year Education Sector Development Plan (2016-2020) and subsequent higher education…